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Hey guys, I am wondering if google has some kind of 40 rankings down penalty? I ask that because my site that was ranked 8th for its main keyword now has the SERP of 48, looks like some kind of penalty to me. Although I didn't do anything wrong other than adding few links to blog directories (site is a blog, btw).

I have the same issue - I've blogged about it below. It's absolutely insane. A search for "SNIP" still brings my site as top on Yahoo!, MSN, Ask etc and up until 3 weeks ago it was the same at Google, however now it's vanished to page 4 or 5 - below other low-traffic sites which actually mention my site.

More recently Google seems to have picked up a site from 4 years ago that I used to run which states, "We're renaming to SNIP soon!". Incredibly weird and it's crippled by revenue and hits. As usual Google come back with, "Here's some recommendations for increasing your traffic" - however I've already done this, I'm sitemapped up, I've got a PR of 5 but no search seems to pull results from my site as it once did - I'm still listed (site:snip) but it's just not pulling many results from it. :( <snip>

Quality links are certainly valuable, but I don't believe that's the cause. My site has plenty of quality inbound links, totally white hat, and we're now on page 2 for our big keywords while a page with only 2 inbound links and hidden text on almost every page is ranked #3.

One of my sites just got this penalty: all previous positions are down exactly 30 places. Even when all other results for a narrow search are suplemental my site is on page 3. This happened last night. It looks like an automatic filter I got just because the template I use is close to what I use on another site.

I have zero respect for Google and their "do no evil" policy which they don't follow. This penalty doesn't do any good for the users.

Manca - You mention June 27th, this is exactly the same day as we got hit. Again, there has been nothing we've done wrong as have religiously stuck to white hat techniques. What exactly do you mean by "40 rankings down penalty". Are you suggesting that there is a specific penalty that lowers your ranking by 40 places? This doesn't sound very logical, as any loss in rankings will surely depend on the quality of the other sites coming up on the SERPS.

A while back (maybe a year ago) I heard that it was possible to check if you actually had a penalty - does anyone know if you can still do that?

Matts Cutts told me that Google refreshed its data on June 27th, so many sites got hit by that refreshment. He promised data will come back to normal in few weeks, though. So, I expect our heavly affected sites (those which were in top10, and went to outside of top100) will back in top10 soon.

As for 40 SERPS down penalty, I can just say I got hit by this "penalty", in fact I am not sure whether it's penalty or not...there is no reason for penalty as my site is PURE PURE white hat w/o any malicious tricks. This could be just some google mistake in rankings and hopefully that'll fix by itself soon. Yes, other sites are coming up, BUT those sites CANNOT by any means overrank legit regulary update site with many QUALITY RELATED backlinks....think about that. I've heard for 30 and 20 serps down penalties, and they often get triggered when site uses dup content or has some hidden text/links. 40 one is not the one I've heard about. Again, it could be just bad data processing...who knows.

The best thing would be to hear some work from GoogleGuy on this issue....that would enlighten us all...

Thanks for that clarification Manca - I think this is something that we may just have to ride out and see how it goes! Will continue doing what we do and not change too much and hope! Have you any thoughts on what action to take for your sites?

By the way, have you ever done a &filter=0 to see if you have a penalty?

Matt Cutts advised to just keep working on our sites. That alludes writing unique content and getting more sites linking back to you (quality sites of course, with legit and "white" neighbours). I trust Matt and will continue doing exactly what he advised and we'll see what's going to happen in a month or so.

And yes, I of couse did &filter=0 but it doesn't show nothing different than w/o it.

sometimes i wonder if im in the twighlight zone i really do...alludes to just writing good content and getting some quality links?...do you not look at the serps?...can anyone show me a site for a money term that has made big upward movements for competitive terms POST BD that hasnt spammed their links one way or another?...are you really saying organic can work in BD if you werent doing well before?..i see good sites doing well..what i have yet to find is a BD winner that is organic...i would love to see that i really would..but where is the evidence?

this..."its just a glitch and it will right itself"..has this not been the cry for the last 2 years?

I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying soapystar - that websites that weren't doing well pre big bigdaddy can't do well organically? Or, if they are doing better its because they've "spammed their links one way or another".

You say people having been saying "its a glitch and will right itself" for the last 2 years - what would you do if your rankings had fallen? Carry on with your normal routine, safe in the knowledge that you're adhering to G's guidelines, or would you try something more drastic?

I wonder if anyone has any success stories about being dropped (or just had thei rankings suffer) - inexplicably, and then, just as inexpicably, bounced back without making any drastic changes themselves.

Matts Cutts told me that Google refreshed its data on June 27th, so many sites got hit by that refreshment. He promised data will come back to normal in few weeks

Hmmm...if this is a reference to what Matt said on his Blog, then that's not what he said at all. He certainly didn't, for example, promise that anything will be "back to normal" in a few weeks. He merely said that the 27th was a "refresh" using the "existing algorithm" and that there would probably be another refresh in 2-3 weeks.

So, as per usual, there is no visible sign whatsoever that Google believe there is anything wrong at the moment.

I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying soapystar - that websites that weren't doing well pre big bigdaddy can't do well organically?

Noooooooooooo! I am saying that TO THIS point post BD I have only observed sites that have spammed their links big time gain from BD in competitive serps.

Or, if they are doing better its because they've "spammed their links one way or another".

That appears to be the one common factor I can find.

You say people having been saying "its a glitch and will right itself" for the last 2 years - what would you do if your rankings had fallen?

Of course the first part of that sentence has nothing to do with the second.

what would you do if your rankings had fallen

Are you making the assumption that my rankings havenít fallen? I would suggest if anyones rankings have fallen theyhave two choices. You can observe whatís worked so far post BD and do that. Of course thatís no guarantee of anything long term. If you asked me what should you do long term I would say build a quality site that people will want to use over and over and will recommend. There is no other way unless your domain is expendable which most spammed domains are. The other thing I would do is NOT assume itís a glitch. I would study well all dropped sites and pages for common factors. I would assume a filter before a glitch for the reason I have stated. Its been around 2 years since the first major filter hit that was deemed a glitch or bug. So be sure you can recognize the difference between the two. Hereís the other question. At what point does a bug become in affect a filter? If data is incorrectly processed a certain way, but that bug is not fixed do you make a real world decision to counter its affects or not?

Carry on with your normal routine, safe in the knowledge that you're adhering to G's guidelines, or would you try something more drastic?

Answered above. This is what managing a website is all about. Itís a judgement call.

I wonder if anyone has any success stories about being dropped (or just had thei rankings suffer) - inexplicably, and then, just as inexpicably, bounced back without making any drastic changes themselves.

This is something that is happening all the time. The point to note however is that not EVERY site comes back exactly how it was. Some may see this as knob adjusting. Its still not a glitch but depending on how big the swing is and how big the recovery you may come to label one way or another.

Soapystar - don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to challenge you, I'm merely trying to find out the reasoning behind your comments. Your observations about Bigdaddy are particularly interesting, and it sounds as if a lot of white hat SEO's must be hitting their heads against the wall! Especially if sites that have spammed are climbing. With regards to the glitch - I totally agree about building a quality site with good content. I think (no, correction, I hope) that this is what every webmaster is trying to attain. What I was trying to convey, is that if you have been knocked down the rankings panicing is not the way forward as it could just as easily be some kind of knob adjusting, as you call it. Doing what you know Google likes and carrying on doing it has got to be a positive step. By the way, I wasn't guessing or assuming your rankings had dropped - it was a question about what you would do if they had, no assumption involved!

You represent what is sadly a growing number of white hats. Its a true dilema. As far as i can tell the micro filters are working and are taking a lot of colatteral with them. Is that an accepted side affect or a glitch? Thats a huge question. In the past google would basically allow you to do what you want within your own site and you could design it totally for users. Now the micro filters are htting home on that. For example there are many reasons why the same information would appear on more than one page. Now it seems that will mean a duplicate penalty even if that information is unique to the net and only repeated within your own site. Alongside that the macro filters are simply not working. The affect is a slanting of the percentage of white to black hat sites in the serps.

ClintFC - "Refresh using the existing algorithm". It sounds so simple but I wonder what it actually means? Does it mean that parts of the index have been totally replaced? It sounds as if there hasn't been any changes to the algo, but how then could site rankings change so drastically? I'd love more of an explanation! But hey, wouldn't we all!